While I understand the logic of this survey, I hope that the ALPSP will
first determine whether there is evidence that articles placed in public
archives decrease publisher downloads (the stated and untested assumption
behind their survey). To date, I have not seen evidence of this
connection. As a consequence, one could equally assume that public
archiving increases the number of publisher downloads, since archiving
(especially of preprints) makes material more public. In essence, the
effect on downloads would be cumulative, and public archives would not be
previewed as parasites on the publishing system, but as an additional
source for promotion. Before we start looking at the cancellation
behaviors of librarians, it would be more helpful to establish whether
public archives decrease publisher-site article downloads, and if so, by
how much.
Phil Davis
Cornell University